Et tu, Brute?

So today I picked up a feed from The Brown Study for a really elegantly written piece contemplating the future of the book (or it's lack of a future.) It puts into words some of the thoughts I've had but have not yet expressed. It's also entertaining and funny. It's an appeal to think about what it is that we're talking about when we discuss the future of "books." And, much to the point that Updike was making at the Expo, suggests that a book is more than the "text" contained between the bindings. That the item itself has some ontological significance beyond the ink and the paper. More importantly, she voices the idea that use of the term "book" to talk about information in a broader sense either accidentally or intentionally misleads the dialogue.

So I take her point and I'm not going to ask whether she's right or wrong. Different readers will have different takes on that. Instead, I'm going to assume that she's right for many readers, and wrong for some others. Therefore, I want to ask, what does either mean for libraries? If Julius Caesar is available in electronic text format, does the "library" no longer have need for a printed and bound copy? Do we direct patrons to a computer and say, sit here and you can read it--sort of an ironic return to a non-circulating collection. Or do we work toward the day when every patron will have a reader that can accept Julius Caesar (just the text) but can also provide much more content (multimedia of the play enacted, links to criticism, etc.) Are our options mutually exclusive?

Now, I know . . . I'm operating from a waning paradigm. But the fact remains that we have these buildings called libraries and these people called patrons. If what they want is the text of Julius Caesar, I need to give it to them. If what they want is some Julius Caesar "experience" that I and they can't yet fathom since it's so delicious and fulfilling, I need to give them that. But this makes it seem like the future of the (bound and printed) book will not be determined by technology, but by people. Has anyone asked them what they want?